Connect Simply

A White House Garden?

Heidi Caswell — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 13:14:53 +0000

Why not? I’ve always believed that if everyone grow some kind of food, even if only a tomato plant in a container, the healthier we would be, along with saving resources. A White House garden would be a great idea.

Still catching up from my trip, lots to share both photos and ideas, but first to unbury my house, mow down the jungle of my yard, etc. One of the things I like about twitter is the ease with with information is passed. I saw I had a new follower @EatTheView so I checked out their page. Loved the idea, made a quick blog post to share with others. As with any good thing, feel free to pass it on.

Pack a Care Package to Iraq

Heidi Caswell — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 21:05:12 +0000

Photo by James Gordon

Both military troops and civilians love getting packages from home. A surprise package from friends/

acquaintances is a special treat.

When we sent a group of care packages out, we knew when they hit. Happy phone calls to the folks back home. Any many will write back if they get the chance. Here is how one described the weather in Iraq:

“It has gotten up to 125 F, so if you want to know how it feels get yourself soaking wet (sweat) rub sand all over your body and have someone hold a hairdrier over you all day”

One of the best ways to send a package is to pick up one of the smaller sized flat rate priority mail boxes from your post office and pack it full. Boxes themselves are free and ship for under $10. Some suggestions of what to pack in a box to Iraq:

Pictures, pictures, pictures. Our church group got together to send packages to members of our congregation in Iraq, dressed up in red, white and blue, added anything Texas related, took snapshots, added to the care packages. Those photos were priceless.

Jerky, Slim Jim’s and other dried meat snacks.

Nuts of any kind. If you know their favorites, be sure to include.

Candy, we chose to send hard candy and sealed in zip lock bags. No chocolate, I’m sure they’d love it, but considering the summer heat, it could arrive as a chocolate puddle.

Zip lock bags. I would not have thought of this one, but they are quite useful over there. Keep bugs and sand out.

Snack items such as gum, cookies, popcorn, chips stacked in those little containers. . . Too many to list just make sure they are not perishable, meltable.

Lip Balm. You can even get ones with sun protection. Think about it, they are in a desert, cuts down on dry chappy lips. Throw in several.

Dental floss, baby powder, sunscreen, lotion, baby wipes, I’ve even seen wipes with both sunscreen and bug repellent.

Phone cards, check with your friend overseas. How are they calling home? Do they have their own satellite phone, or do they use pre-paid calling cards. If purchasing minutes, then calling cards are always welcome.

Reminders of home. We sent patriotic (near 4th of July) wrist bands, stickers, flags. Any thing that reminds them of home. The kids had fun when one of the guys was back home visiting, thanked our children’s group, and was still wearing the wrist band from home.

Save and send the Sunday funnies, click good newspaper articles.

Pictures, drawings, letters. Get a group together, write letters, draw pictures, we had pre-schoolers drawing pictures which we included in our packages. On guy shared drawings with his friends in Iraq. Can you believe there are some over there that never get any mail and a drawing from an unknown child to post in their area is a welcome treat. Means more than the store bought items.

Record yourself and save to a cd. Tell about your day, read a story, read the good things in your local paper.

Most important, make sure you let them know they are much appreciated. Not forgotten.

For an easy way to send personalized photo greeting cards, visit CardsConnectSimply.

care package iraq suggestions

I Almost Didn’t Tweet

Heidi Caswell — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 21:00:09 +0000

Twitter

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I've been hearing much about Twitter, but kept it on a back burner. Not one more thing to join. One more profile page to fill in. Not one more password to make up.

But the more I heard about twitter, the more I knew I’d have to check this one out.

Finally I decided I might as well save my name. So I grabbed a twitter account, was delighted there was no lengthy profile to fill out. I have some of those already, I can just point to one, better yet, my business page.

Funny thing happened, while I was checking it out how it worked, I just started using it, finding friends, communicating back and forth. No long posts, no more than 140 characters.

If you have Facebook, click on the twitter application on the left, add your twitter info, then your tweets update facebook too.
If you have a blog you will want your posts to auto-tweet. See Auto Tweet Your Posts</li>
Looking for something?Search Twitter
Many twitter tools make your life easier. I’m using Digsby. Thanks to Blake!
I believe what is even more valuable on twitter is the connections you make, read Felicia Slattery’s Ryze post

Learning how to Twitter. Tweet! Tweet!

Great to Be Eight 08 08 08

Heidi Caswell — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 11:10:39 +0000

Celebrating Rain

August 8, 2008 Also known as 08/08/08.

This Great to be Eight Day is a busy one for me. Packing, making sure bills paid in advance, instructions written down for son who is house sitting, making sure our church’s children organization is covered in my absence, food for the house, food packed for road trip, several phone calls to make, endless little things which not all will get done.

But it is a great day. I’m heading out to attend SendOutCards convention in Salt Lake City. My oldest daughter lives out that way with her family, my parents, 2 brothers, 2 sisters and their families. My mother-in-law, sister-in-law families along the way. First traveling to my son’s place and they will head out with us the next morning. Start of a great trip visiting family, friends along the way.

Another great thing about today is rain! Real rain! My trees were melting and my grass goes crunch, tired of needing oven gloves to drive my car.

Next couple weeks, you won’t be seeing me online much. Now I’ve not kicked the bucket, been held hostage by aliens, or sucked into a black hole. I’m enjoying time visiting family, and attending the Send Out Cards convention.

Meanwhile, feel free to comment, browse around, send a greeting card, and download Laura Wheeler’s Essential Strategies for Earning with Affiliate Links book.

eight day send out cards convention

Auto-Tweet Your Posts

Heidi Caswell — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 03:30:57 +0000

Feed Your Blog to Twitter

Anything that saves me time and helps me keep up (somewhat) with all these social media trends is a good thing.

One thing I like about twitter is that I can feed my tweets to Facebook, and feed my blog’s feed to twitter. Anytime I create a new post it goes straight to twitter then Facebook. More links to my blog, and those friends and followers who hang out there are informed of my new posts. Auto-tweets.

There are several wordpress plugins that work with twitter. I don’t know which work best, but feel free to share you favorite twitter tools and plugins. If you want your tweets to show up on your blog, check out the twittertools plugin and other twitter tools.

I am using http://twitterfeed.com/, a very simply way to feed your rss feeds to twitter. I signed up for twitter and facebook same day. Two places I kept putting off investigating. To my surprise there was a twitter ap in the left side of facebook, so I filled it in and happy days, my tweets were now on face book.

Twitterfeed, “. . .feed your blog to twitter.”

twitter feed blog post auto-tweet

Teachers Who Relate to Students

Heidi Caswell — Sat, 02 Aug 2008 17:54:34 +0000

Photo by foxypar4

When I was in college, after my freshman year, I decided I was going to pick my teachers. First day of class I was deciding “is it worth my time to listen to this dude (or “dudette”) for the next semester?” And if they didn’t pass, I was dropping their class and signing up for another.

I had a very dry chemistry teacher the year before, brilliant guy, wrote his own book, but couldn’t teach, didn’t relate well to others. I fell asleep in class, skipped class, had a couple friends in class and we tried not to miss the same days and hopefully not miss the tests.

Amazingly I passed. But I vowed never again would I waste my time and money in a class I didn’t want to be in. I know you have to take certain classes to get your degree, but in a large university it is about choices.

And it wasn’t about the subject as it was the teacher. I had an human biology class that I dreaded taking, afraid it would be full of terms to memorize. But from day one I was hooked. The professor got us thinking about how things worked, why, engaged us in fun discussions. I learned more chemistry in his biology class than my chemistry class.

Now this may not be the traditional way to go to college, but being somewhat of a rebel, I decided to learn the things I wanted to learn, from those whom I wanted to learn from. It would be sad to spend time and money at an institution that offered cool stuff and not to participate because it wasn’t on your recommended schedule.

Guilt was gone. Freedom! Take whatever I pleased but still work towards graduation. Contrary to popular belief, I did not take underwater basket weaving. I did take a rock climbing class, a hiking class, a how to put on a campfire program class. More than one ceramic class, I had no idea it would be so much fun to squeeze that mud between my fingers and make stuff. My roommates got a kick out of the funky looking toilet I made and stuffed an air fern in the bowl. Creative writing. Learned I had talent there. Was kind to myself, one creative class and one active class each semester. One summer I took off with my sister and we took classes while hiking, canoing, horseback riding in the Tetons and Yellowstone. Now the class that taught me how to load a pack horse I’ve not used since, and forgotten. Yet the experience taught me much, and I passed off more general ed requirements.

As Teddy Towncrier was saying how cool it would be to spend a week with Randy Pausch, I was thinking of Randy’s students, how they were blessed. One of my self-imposed rules was if you find a great teacher, take their classes, who cares if they count towards you major. Maybe you are in the wrong major? Stephen Covey was teaching at the university, someone had giving me one of his books when I graduated from high school. I liked the book, so I took his class. Worth every minute.

I’d had many great teachers, not all as well known, but great talent just the same. I remember one of my favorite high school teachers that had a student teacher for a 6 weeks. (Tough spot for the student teacher, pretty big shoes to fill, who would have thought a social studies teacher could be so popular). The student teacher was very bright, but did not have the attention of the class. He’d switch from one technique to the next. Didn’t matter. He’d lost us. Asleep, visiting with each other, whatever, but he did not have our undivided attention. We had a discussion with the teacher later, learned that he flunked the dude. Harsh? Maybe, but as he explained, nice guy, knows his stuff, but unless he learns to relate to his students he will never make it as a teacher.

And I think that is the key, relating to students. He treated us as equals, shared knowledge, had discussions not lectures. True he lead discussions, but they were discussions, sometimes off track, but the material was covered, ideas planted, and we were encouraged to have our own thoughts, learn new things, think outside the box.

Thanks to all the teachers who relate to their students, care about each and everyone, adding their own personal touch to the class.

teachers relate students personal touch

Tribute to Randy Pausch

Heidi Caswell — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 15:51:18 +0000

I’d been meaning to buy Randy Pausch’s Last Lecture book, just ordered from Amazon today, he was very much on my mind. I wondered how he was doing, visited his website, sad to see note posted yesterday that he was doing poorly, in hospice. Then the twitter notices came in. Randy Pausch died today.

Paying tribute to Randy Pausch!

August 2007 he was told he had 3-6 months to live, he made it to end of July 2008.

“We don’t beat the reaper by living longer. We beat the reaper by living well, and living fully, for the reaper will come for all of us. The question is what do we do between the time we are born and the time he shows up. Cause when he shows up it’s too late to do all the things that you’re always were kinda going to get around to.” Randy Pausch

Randy Pausch was very passionate about life, living his dreams, his relationships with others, his love for his family.

In honor of Randy Pausch I challenge each of you to live life to the fullest, not the leave the important stuff undone, to follow his example.

If you haven’t already seen these videos of Randy’s Last Lecture or his lecture on Time Management, they are well worth your time.

Last Lecture

Time Management

Randy Pausch tribute passion time management last lecture

Updating Blog

Heidi Caswell — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 15:38:53 +0000

You will see a few strange things going on over here, sidebar not quite as pretty as I like while working on a new theme for my site.

Keeping in mind I’m and airhead and accidently posted to a page, when I meant to post to a post. Wanting the rss feed, I’m moving my tribute to Randy Pausch back to a post if I can keep the url intact.

Happy Birthday Divas

Heidi Caswell — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 03:48:59 +0000

Birthday Candle by Tanakawho

Were did the time go? This celebration snuck up on me. The Baby Boomer Diva’s are celebrating their 1st birthday.

(So we can just start over counting years and we are all one here. Or not quite one for those of us who joined later. Less candles to blow out, less counting. . .)

Much thanks to Beverly Mahone for starting this group, and the talent, heart, and wisdom of its members.

Now how can we have a birthday without presents? I remember questions about “What is affiliate marketing?” What do I do? Well Laura Wheeler has generously given me rights to an eBook on that very subject, and to celebrate the birthday I’ll make it free to download for the next month.

Essential Strategies for Earning with Affiliate Links
http://connectsimply.com/affiliatebook.pdf

So open up your presents. Not one of the Divas? No problem, join the celebration and pick up your book.

baby boomer divas earning with affiliate links ebook

Changing the Color of a Background Image - Gimp

Heidi Caswell — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 14:47:09 +0000

As I test Jing Project, I’m using it for a few short tutorials. This first one is how to change the background image using Gimp.

Video is a great way to share, and Jing is quick and easy to do. I am limited to 5 minutes or less, which is great. Short and sweet works. In order to add the Gimp toolbar, I had to record a wider screen capture than what fits here, so you see it bleeds over into my side bar. I can always make a wider blog so these videos fit.

gimp background color jing project video tutorial